472 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



refined analysis of a soil is capable in many cases,! 

 of determining Avhether they are present in it or. 

 not — much le:<s of explaining to what its peculiar 

 defects or excellencies may be owing — what ought 

 to be added to it in order to render it more pro- 

 ductive — or why certain remarkable effects are' 

 produced upon it by the additional mineral or ani-l 

 mal manures." ' 



PRACTICAL RESULTS. 



In the N. E. Fanner, Vol. 2, p. 38G, is an ac- 

 count of an instance of the successful application 

 of chemistry to agriculture, at once clear and con- 

 clusive, l)y which it appears that by the addition 

 of an artificial manure at a cost of $10 per acre, 

 more than twenty-nine bushels per acre of wheat 

 was raised on a field of ten acres, previously inca- 

 pable of producing corn. But lest I should be 

 thought to jump at conclusions wonderfully, in 

 supposing that if lion. Reverdy Johnson, near Bal- 

 timore, raised large crops, we can do the same 

 here, I will drop this, and refer to another, nearer 

 home ; and not having noticed it in the Farmer, I 

 will quote the principal facts as I find them in an- 

 other paper. 



"Mr. Wm. P. Dickinson, of Hadley, had a 

 field of eight acres thoroughly grown over with 

 mosa. He procured an analysis of it by the late 

 Prof. Norton, and was told that it was deficient 

 in two or three ingredients which could be cheap- 

 ly supplied. He plowed the field and treated it in 

 every respect as Prof. Norton advised, with the 

 exception of here and there a couple of rows, 

 which were cultivated as he would have cultivated 

 the whole if he had not been advised other jvise. 

 The result is, a crop of corn now in the field equal 

 to perhaps twenty bushels per acre where culti- 

 vated in the old way, and very nearly fifty where 

 cultivated as Prof. Norton advised. Mr. D., after 

 keeping an exact account of the expenses, gives 

 it as his deliberate opinion that the increased pro- 

 fit in consequence of Prof. Norton's advise is at 

 least fifty dollars this year, and besides this, he 

 has better hopes for that land hereafter." — H. 

 and F. Express. The names of the farmers be- 

 ing given, Mr. Brown may in these instances know 

 who raised large crops after having their soils an- 

 alyzed ; but lest these results of one year's trial of 

 particular ingredients as manure should not satis- 

 fy the most of us, I will quote from the Plow, p. 

 254, a few lines of what an eminent professor of 

 chemistry says of their use in England : "Scarcely 

 anything has accelerated the progress of agricul- 

 ture so much as the introduction of artificial ma- 

 nures. By means of artificial manures the pro- 

 duce of this country has been considerably aug- 

 mented ; new crops have been introduced into the 

 usual rotation, and land so sterile that it would 

 not repay the cost of cultivation in the usual way, 

 has been forced at once to yield remunerative 

 crops. _ Even supposing the land to be in such a 

 condition as to yield the maximum return which 

 the usual rotation of crops is capable of furnishing, 

 the extra command of artificial manures would 

 still materially increase the profits of the far- 

 mer, as it would enable him to dispense with 

 those crops which are loss remunerative, and to 

 replace them by others which require a larger dose 

 of manure, but which also yield a larger profit. — 

 These facts, says the editor, are equally true and 

 applicable to the business of farming in^this coun- 

 try as in England." 



THE FLIGHT OF FANCY. 



In the still too common mode of culture, where 

 the common plow has been run but a few inches 

 deep, and that in a manner and at times well 

 suited to form a hard division line between the 

 soil and the subsoil, so that crops were drowned by 

 rains, or scorched by drought, no^ioubt much de- 

 pends upon a favorable season. But let us look 

 around and see if the buds of promise already be- 

 ginning to open, do not plainly foreteH^"a good 

 time coming," when, by adopting a good system of 

 draining — by the timely and sufficient use of such 

 implements as shall be found to bring both the soil 

 and subsoil into the best possible condition for the 

 growth of the desired crops — by carefully saving 

 the waste water from the farm house, as well as 

 barn-yard, and applying it to growing crops in a 

 more or less dilute state, according to the dryness 

 of the season,by the encouragement of the growth 

 of belts of hardy trees in such positions that they 

 shall shelter tillage lands from both cold and dry- 

 ing winds, farmers shall not only be able, notwith- 

 standing the ordinary changes of seasons, to se- 

 cure good staple crops, but the results of out of 

 doors experiments, conducted by scientifically 

 practical men, shall approximate so closely to 

 those in the laboratory, that intelligent farmers 

 shall no longer look with any degree of distrust 

 upon the recommendations of those who devote 

 their entire energies to the study of the branches 

 of science most applicable to agriculture . 



SURFACE REASONING. 



If your correspondent concludes, from my stating 

 that I had supposed that what he calls surface 

 soil was that which chemists and agriculturists 

 ha4 most to do with, that I also supposed that 

 they had nothing to do with the subsoil, he must 

 haMe suddenly adopted a very superficial mode of 

 reasoning. Indeed, his changes of position are 

 quite amusing. First, he plunges through " the 

 soil at the surface," as if it were of no account, 

 and stops at an unknown depth to make observa- 

 tions that shall have a bearing upon p»-actical ag- 

 riculture ; but being confronted there, we next 

 find him as much above the common level as he 

 had probably before been below ; then quietly 

 acknowledging the reception of instructions never 

 given him, and yet unable to overcome his habit 

 of going to the bottom of things, he plunges again 

 into the subsoil to ascertain what the " surface 

 soil " needs to render it fertile. Here truth may 

 be found between these extremes ; for, although 

 it could hardly be said that in the ordinary mode 

 of culture the soil depends to any great extent 

 upon the subsoil for its fertility, yet the product- 

 ive value of the form will depend very much upon 

 the character and condition of the subsoil. For 

 this reason our best agriculturists are beginning 

 to work it deeply and examine it thoroughly, 

 some being at the expense of analysis, by which it 

 is sometimes found to contain " all those mineral 

 constituents in which the sod itself is deficient." — 

 (Johnston.) 



THE RESTORATIVE. 



It is not at all surprising that one who is 

 so much of a conjurer as to be able to discover 

 changes in soils beneath where the soil has been 

 removed, and prescribe for exhausted soils a uni- 

 versal restorative, compounded of so many reme- 

 dial agents that it shall not fail of supplying " the 



